Teach me the T's


What is wrong with me? I have been trying to do 'accents' since I started speaking, and mind you, I do them perfectly well when I am talking to myself.

Then what happens when I speak to my client, trying to show off my tongue twisting expertise with my hissing 'sss' sound after every line. It completely falls flat, and when I see that I am faltering I adopt a kedigree of accents in the same sentence, mortifying myself to the hilt. Then, I am asked to do the most embarrassing thing, in front of my team mates-people with their varied, mallu, tamil, marathi, hindi accents- to repeat myself slowly so that the firang can understand my 'Indian' accent .I can perfectly rattle of in smooth British BBC accent. ( Dear Readers, I don't work in a call center where they are taught all this stuff), I learned it on my own copying Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and watching re-runs of Coupling- my favorite TV series, as good as 'SATC'-and imagining myself on a ship with Leo Decaprio.